Sticked and Stoned
by Mickleditch
Summary: Short and random collection of drabbles and double drabbles on the subject of Murdock's residence at the VA. Mental health issues, brief implied Face x Murdock.


Disclaimer: The A-Team and all characters belong to SJC and Universal Studios.

Author's Notes: I tend to subscribe to the 'OTT stuff is an act but he has real problems too' theory regarding Murdock. Biggest reason, for me, being that I highly doubt that someone who didn't need to be there would choose - or even be psychologically able - to spend a decade living in a psychiatric hospital. If he wasn't crazy when he went in, he soon would be.

* * *

"You think I'm crazier now than when I came in, Doc? I feel like the purple wobblies are getting bigger and purpler and more wobbly every time, you know?"

"No, I don't think that you're getting crazier. I do think that you have a lot of emotional investment in believing that you are. You've been a patient here for over ten years, Murdock. Being crazy's become part of your identity."

"Doc, I got so many identities, I need my own phone directory to keep track of myself."

"The one I'm interested in is Captain HM Murdock." Richter leans back in his chair. "The real HM Murdock. He's in there... behind the voices, and the games. I'd like to have more sessions with him, because I think I could help him, if he'd let me."

Murdock's gaze drops to his thumbnail. He picks at it, then, because it seems like it might feel left out, switches to the other. After a few moments, he looks up, and smiles, widely. "Hey, Doc, you think we could try some of that cognitive restructuring again? 'Cause I think I'm getting real close to a breakthrough, and if I just -"

Somewhere, a door slams.

-ooOOoo-

Murdock's closet is full of disguises. Captain Cab's cape. Mac Murdock's fedora. The Range Rider's gun belt and chaps. When he starts remembering, and it keeps coming and coming, and won't stop, it's easiest to haul it out of there and be somebody else for a while. Doc Richter calls it a distraction technique; a way for Murdock to avoid confronting what his mind wants him to confront, but Richter doesn't have a mind like Murdock's to negotiate with.

Murdock's demons recognize him on sight, but they don't know the Range Rider.

Let those suckers try and find him now.

-ooOOoo-

The last time Murdock pretended to be a dog and bit one of the orderlies, they shot him up with Haldol, and he pissed in his pants three times and couldn't make his legs stop pacing around for two days. You can hide a pill between your teeth and gum, or swallow it and then bring it back up, but you can't fake taking the shots. Not when there's a couple of guys the size of BA smushing your face into the floor.

Anti-psychs make him shake and give him feelings like itches inside his bones and tension coiled up in his belly that he can't work off. Murdock's told Hannibal that he doesn't need anti-psychs.

Benzos he loves. Benzos are Murdock's bestest little friends. Chicken noodle soup on a plastic tray, milk in a plastic cup, and two milligrams Klonopin, and he's good to go for the night; stoned out of his mind and down into layer on layer of dark fuzzy sleep instead. Usually he thinks too much, but he doesn't think about much of anything after a Benzo.

A couple of contraband Dexies in the morning from Jimmy Stokes in room 103, and he's good to fly.

-ooOOoo-

The VA is like a fishtank: it's always in motion. People are always moving, floating about, passing and navigating each other, and anybody who stops moving for long is probably dead.

Casey Kaczmarek can go days without moving. He isn't dead yet, just the nearest thing to it. They feed him by tube if they think it's been too long. Murdock watches them wheel in the IV stand and hook up the bags of solution, while Casey watches the wall.

One evening, Murdock snuck out a call and ordered Chinese food for everybody with Face's credit card number. Psych had been rocking like a boat, with lots of fights that they all needed, and people in restraints every day, and the nurses, in desperation, let it go through when it arrived. They sat on their beds and on the floor in the corridors, and ate out of the cartons. When Murdock put the food next to Casey and said, "Get it while it's hot, muchacho," Casey stopped looking at the wall, and looked at his egg fried rice.

A skin magazine got stolen from under somebody's mattress and changed hands throughout the whole wing.

That was a pretty good night.

-ooOOoo-

In the mornings, Murdock's reading Faulkner. Afternoons, he's reading Jung. He reads anything he can borrow, scam, or sneak in, just because it makes the time go by faster, and when there's nothing left to read except the fire regulations, he makes up stories. He used to have one about the adventures of a mutt dog named Billy, but that wound up kind of getting away from him.

BA won't have Billy in the van, but when Murdock tells stories about 'Nam, he stops being such an angry mudsucker and listens. Nobody dies in Murdock's stories, and everybody comes home.

-ooOOoo-

Murdock talks and talks because he doesn't like silence. Too much silence building inside, and he starts hearing things he doesn't want to hear and thinking about things he doesn't want to remember. When he's not talking, he sings, or howls. He used to sing all the time when he was out in his Huey, so the grunts he had up in back didn't have to hear what was in their heads that shelling didn't drown out and machine gun fire didn't drown out. He'd tilt the chopper and do stunts, so they'd yell and cuss at him and call him a crazy son of a bitch, instead of going crazy themselves.

When he flew Hannibal, Face and BA to Hanoi for the bank job, he sang them all the way there with La Traviata, and he was still singing when he made it back to base. Singing and howling and screaming and laughing, like he couldn't stop; like there wasn't any end to it, and nobody would listen when they were dragging his ass out of the chopper and off across the field to the MO and he kept telling them that he just couldn't stand that damn silence.

-ooOOoo-

As the 'Vette purrs to a halt, a loud crash, followed by yelling and shouts for help, echoes from one of the windows above them. Murdock throws a glance in Face's direction in time to see something like a shiver briefly cross his features. Ducking his head, he works to catch the other man's eye.

"C'mon, Face. You heard it before when you been here."

"I know. I just never like bringing you back to it."

Murdock hesitates, thinking. Then he says, deliberately drawling the laughter into his voice, "There's this sergeant, One Nine Marines, and last Monday he comes running right into the cafeteria and hollers, _Incoming!_ and Leo Bell picks up the peanut butter and says -"

"Murdock." Reproachful.

"Face, they're only guys in there. When a crazy man yells, it's just crazy mens' yelling, that's all."

When he hugs Face, he imagines that the answering squeeze is tighter than normal. It's frustrating, but he can deal with that later on, in his own time. He smells Face's hair; his cologne, recommitting it to memory.

"You have to go back," Face says. The statement is double-layered. Murdock nods, in reply to both.

"I wanna go back," he says.


End file.
